TORONTO – When the Toronto Maple Leafs left Maple Leaf Gardens in 1999 they brought the ghosts of the old barn with them.

Randy Carlyle cannot walk but a foot or two along the ACC’s hallways without passing by a vintage photograph of Leafs heroes like Syl Apps or Ted Kennedy or Frank Mahovlich, of Stanley Cups raised through six decades; black and white reminders of both the Leafs’ storied past and decades of futility, framed ghosts, who, like the expectations surrounding the franchise, loom larger with each passing year.

Carlyle, who guided the Ducks to the 2007 Stanley Cup, has navigated the maze, leading the Maple Leafs in his first full season in Toronto back into the Stanley Cup playoffs for the first time since 2004.

“We’ve waited a long time for this,” Leafs center Nazem Kadri told reporters last week. “We’ve taken a lot of heat, we’ve had some peaks and valleys but finally we can say we’re going to play in the Stanley Cup playoffs.”

Toronto’s unexpected return to the NHL playoffs offers both redemption for Carlyle, 56, who was forced out in Anaheim 24 games into last season, and a potential turning point for a franchise that hasn’t lifted the Stanley Cup since 1967, the last season before the NHL expanded beyond the so-called “Original Six.” The Hockey News was not alone in picking the Leafs to finish 12th in the Eastern Conference before the lockout-shortened season. Yet Toronto will meet ancient rival Boston in the Eastern Conference first round.

“We refer back to respect,” Carlyle said. “We’re trying to earn respect back for our group.”

Carlyle has made the Maple Leafs relevant again while working beneath the unforgiving microscope of the NHL’s most demanding market.

“In any of the Canadian markets there’s always a lot of media coverage,” Leafs captain Dion Phaneuf said. “It’s just that in Toronto it’s just really ramped up even more. There’s more media, more cameras, more pressure.”

Routine morning skates attract more than 30 media members. And it’s not just the city’s four newspapers and talk radio shows dissecting every line change and healthy scratch. That the Leafs are so often Topic A on TSN, SportsNet, the country’s leading sports cable networks, or the CBC’s “Hockey Night In Canada” is both a testament to Toronto-centric nature of the Canadian media and the franchise’s hold on Anglophone Canada.

“Everybody in the NHL has an interest in what’s going on in Toronto,” Carlyle said. “You’re center stage.”

Forty-six Leafs players have been inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame, which is just three blocks from the ACC. Another 13 former Leafs officials, employees and broadcasters are also in the hall. Toronto has won 13 Stanley Cups, including five in seven seasons in the 1940s, and four between 1962 and 1967. But as the NHL moved into a new era so did the Leafs, who would be plagued by scandal and mismanagement for much of the next five decades. The 1967 triumph against Montreal was not only Toronto’s last Stanley Cup victory but also its last appearance in the finals.

In the 1960s the Leafs were acquired by a group largely financed by Harold Ballard, who would soon become the most despised owner in the NHL and Ontario. Ballard was convicted in 1969 of 47 counts of fraud, theft and tax evasion. He served a third of his nine-year sentence, most of it in a Toronto half-way house, and maintained control of the franchise. But Ballard’s real crime Toronto fans complained, was what he did to the Leafs during his reign of error. Ballard’s meddling, pettiness, feuds and general mismanagement of the franchise would result in 13 consecutive non-winning seasons between 1979 and 1992.

The Leafs had become a national joke: What do the Toronto Maple Leafs and the Titanic have in common? They both look good until they hit ice.

Toronto’s lack of on-ice success, however, has neither hurt the franchise’s bottom line nor diminished expectations. The Leafs are the NHL’s most valued franchise with Forbes last November estimating the club’s worth at $1 billion, the same value the magazine placed on the Lakers. In fact Toronto’s estimated annual revenue of $200 million is actually higher according to Forbes than the same figure for the Lakers.

However, solving Toronto’s problems on the ice has become something of a cottage industry across Canada.

In November 2008, Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment thought the answer was to hire Ducks general manager Brian Burke as Toronto’s GM and president. While Burke, ever the lightning rod, made plenty of headlines in Toronto, the Leafs continued to struggle. Toronto started last season 14-8-2 but had slipped to 29-27-7 in late February when Burke decided to replace longtime friend Ron Wilson with Carlyle.

“There was a lot of tension (within the team),” Carlyle recalled. “Confidence was at an all-time low. My job was to get them to pick themselves up.”

While Toronto would finish the 2011-12 season at 35-37-10, the 18 games under Carlyle set the tone for this season and gave him a familiarity with what he was dealing with.

“I think it was really big for our team to see how he runs things, the system he wanted to implement,” Phaneuf said. “He’s done a good job of coming in here and being straight forward in terms of what he wanted to do as a group and how we have to play to be successful. He demands hard work every night and honest effort from every guy.”

And Carlyle was convinced the Leafs, with a blue collar work ethic, could be a playoff team.

“We thought we had personnel that could play in the NHL and because you put a template in place that people said that we couldn’t play that way because we were too small,” Carlyle said. “Well I don’t think we’re small. The new rules have allowed small men to play and the small man, the competitive small man has a chance to be dynamic in the league now and what we’re asking is when it’s your turn to be first the forecheck, you better be first. When it’s your turn to be first in the back check you better be first on the back check. Anybody can get in anybody’s way. Anybody can go out there and step in front of people and get inside. So I don’t think it’s really that difficult from our perspective on what we’re asking people. We’re asking people is to do what comes naturally and if it doesn’t come naturally then step out of your comfort zone and do it.”

“He’s done a great job of keeping guys in line, keeping an eye on our vision,” Kadri said.

“This year we’ve all pulled in the same direction,” defenseman Carl Gunnarsson said. “We had a system we really believed in and we knew when we play to that system we win games.”

Perhaps no one has benefited more from Carlyle’s arrival than Kadri, 22, who three seasons under Wilson bounced back and forth between the NHL and the minors.

“Randy has just really given me a new opportunity, a clean slate,” Kadri said.

Kadri has repaid Carlyle by finishing in the NHL Top 25 in points (44), goals (18), assists (26) and plus/minus (+15).

“I kind of felt my style of game kind of suited his style as well,” Kadri said.

Asked to describe that style, Kadri smiled.

“Aggressive, physical, fast, simple,” he said.

While the system is Carlyle’s, a significant amount of the credit for the unexpected turn around must also go to Burke, who was fired on the eve of the season and is now back in the Ducks organization. This Leafs’ team not only has Burke’s fingerprints all over it but also has its architect’s clinched fist. Toronto has indeed displayed plenty of pugnacity, testosterone, truculence and belligerence, Burke’s mandated cornerstones, leading the NHL this season in fights (44), according to hockeyfights.com.

“We’ve asked our team to make up a little of difference in the way we felt we had to play and we’ve tried to create a template,” Carlyle said. “The game is meant to be physical and that’s not just running people over and go out there and try and take somebody’s head off but we call it more ‘Stopping progression.’

“I don’t think that’s any secret. That’s been in the game for a long time. We’re just trying to play a brand of hockey that both gives us a chance to have some success and to provide and element of entertainment.”

With the move to Toronto, Carlyle has forced himself to go outside of his own comfort zone. Between his Anaheim firing and Toronto hiring and then again through the prolonged lockout, Carlyle, known for riding teams hard, re-examined his coaching style, both reaching out to friends and looking within.

“I just think that’s part of every coaching staff you’re always trying to develop a template inside the room,” Carlyle said. “It’s not any different from running a company with 25 employees. You’re accountable to what you do on a day to the bottom line whether the company is going to be productive or non-productive. Everybody has to share in that responsibility and it’s a big word and real easy to say (accountability) but it’s real hard to live. And sometimes it’s not very nice. And that’s the reality of it.

“We’re not here to be nice all the time. But we’re not here to be jerks all the time either. You know there’s got to be a happy medium and you have to be able to send your message to people in different ways. And some people take it literally the wrong way or you have to find which way to bring it. … I just found if you’re honest and you can be straight forward that usually you have a better response when you’re that way than when you’re beating around the bush. I don’t think that really works in today’s sports. I think there’s time you have to be a lot softer than maybe I would be before but I think that’s an adjustment you have to make as a coach. And you grow as a person and a coach.”

After a morning skate last month Carlyle recalled a conversation with his old friend, St. Louis coach Ken Hitchcock.

“He talked about he was being labeled as one type of coach and he was this person or that person and he felt that stepping back from the game he had to make some adjustments to his approach and that he’d walk around the arena before entering the arena because he didn’t want to feel like that he was going to bring anything negative to the rink that day,” Carlyle said. “So he was going to walk around the rink and sometimes he said he did 10 laps because there are things that you’d like to flush out. But I don’t have to take 10 laps in my mind right now. It’s about bringing what you can to the day on a day to day basis and provide your players with the positives in how you deliver your negatives and basically we’re a team and we’re part of a family unit and the coaching staff is part of that and if you can’t communicate and can’t get to your players you have to find a different way to approach it.”

Carlyle was asked what his negatives were. He laughed.

“Oh, there’s a list,” he said. “A long one. I don’t want to give you all, all of my negatives.”

For now Carlyle’s focus and that of Toronto is on the Stanley Cup playoffs.

“We’ve had some speed bumps along the way,” Carlyle told reporters last week. “But I think it’s a start.”

Scott M. Reid is a sports enterprise/investigative reporter for the Orange County Register. He also covers Olympic and international sports as well as the Los Angeles’ bid to host the 2024 Olympic Games. His work for the Register has led to investigations by the International Olympic Committee, the U.S. Department of Education, the California Legislature, and the national governing bodies for gymnastics and swimming. Reid's 2011 reporting on wide spread sexual abuse within USA Gymnastics and the governing body's failure to effectively address it led to Don Peters, coach of the 1984 record-setting Olympic team, being banned from the sport for life. His reporting also prompted USA Gymnastics to adopt new guidelines and policies dealing with sexual abuse. Reid's 2012 and 2013 reporting on sexual abuse within USA Swimming led to the banishment of two top level coaches. Reid has won 11 Associated Press Sports Editors awards for investigative reporting since 1999. He has also been honored by APSE for game writing, and enterprise, news, and beat reporting. He was an Investigative Reporters and Editors award finalist in 2002 and 2003. Prior to joining the Register in 1996, Reid worked for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and the Dallas Times Herald. He has a B.A. in the History of the Americas from the University of Washington.

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